Fearless Females 2013: Day 26: Education

What education did your female ancestors receive?

Well, this originally asked what education was received by your mother, your grandmothers, or your great grandmothers.  I decided to be a rebel, and have chosen a great great grandmother!

Emma Elizabeth Dunstone AVERY was christened 4 June 1837 in Rame, Cornwall.  1889 saw her being committed to the County Lunatic Asylum in Bodmin, Cornwall, where her admittance notes describe her as being "well educated for her station in life"...

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...

Fearless Females 2013: Day 9: Family Documents

Take a family document (baptismal certificate, passenger list, naturalization petition, etc.) and write a brief narrative using the information.

Rame Head, Cornwall

Emma Elizabeth DUNSTONE was christened on 4 June 1837 in Rame, Cornwall, and married Charles Henry CHASE in 1855.  I still have to find out what happened to Charles Henry, because on 29 July 1860 in Stoke Damerel, Devon, she married John Dunstone AVERY, her cousin. Maybe Charles Henry died? did Emma Elizabeth take her small sons with her (one, Charles Russell CHASE, had only been born in the April-May-June quarter, so he might have been as young as one month old when his mother remarried).  They do not any of them appear in the 1861 census.

And then, her story becomes fairly uneventful - at least, as far as the census records can tell.  Until the 1891 census, when her husband John described himself as a widower, so I thought that Emma had died - then in the 1901 census, Emma was mysteriously back from the dead, and John was missing. After much research, and even more miracles, I found that in 1891 Emma had actually been in the County Lunatic Asylum in Bodmin - and, in 1901, her husband John was there instead!

Bodmin Lunatic Asylum © Peter Higginbotham

 Emma was committed to the Asylum in 1889 for being homicidal, sometimes refusing food, and having 'her bedroom all in disorder'.  After seven years in the Asylum, all she was given were tonics, she appeared better, and was discharged on 3 June 1896.  (BTW, her husband was then admitted with head injuries, and died three years later.  More exciting research beckons...)

Millbrook, Cornwall

Emma went on to live with her daughter, another Emma, and son-in-law Samuel HAYWOOD at 32 West Street, Millbrook, Cornwall.  She died on 21 April 1915 of heart disease and dropsy in Kingsand, Cornwall.






Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...  

Fearless Females: Emma Elizabeth Dunstone AVERY - an educated woman

Emma Elizabeth Dunstone AVERY(1837-1915) was my paternal great-great-grandmother.  On the 1891 census, her husband is described as a widower - but Emma Elizabeth had not died.  She had been committed to the Bodmin (Cornwall) Lunatic Asylum on 25th July 1889 as a 'pauper patient' being of 'unsound mind'.  The Medical Gentleman (the form actually calls him that!) had to record various notes and medical reasons for her being there, and give a description of her - in this case, not a physical description as such, more of a mental one.

Emma Elizabeth is described as being 'fairly well educated for her station in life', that is, as the wife of a dockyard labourer.  I wonder what constituted 'fairly well educated'?

She was given tonics, and appeared cured, so was discharged on 3 June 1896.  Seven years in a Lunatic Asylum - and the cure was taking tonics!  Was that because medical knowledge hadn't advanced far enough, or because her 'illness' wasn't actually that severe?  She lived for nearly twenty years after that, but I'm sure her stay in the Asylum had left its mark.


This post is part of the Fearless Females theme to honour National Women's History month.

Madness Monday: Keeping it in the family

Last week I wrote of my great great grandmother, Emma Elizabeth Dunstone Avery, who was confined in Bodmin Lunatic Asylum for thinking that everyone was against her (and her room was 'all in disorder'!).

This week deals with her husband, my great great grandfather, John Dunstone Avery.  He was present at home at the 1891 census, and she was not; then she was home in the 1901 census, and he was not.  I tracked him down to the same Lunatic Asylum (and his patient record even remarks that Emma had already been there!).  He was admitted in 1900 after a head injury, and remained there until his death in 1903 from nephritis, a disease of the kidneys.  It may be that this was caused or exacerbated by the fact that he maintained that his family were trying to poison him. 

Previous censuses have described him as a rigger on Royal Naval ships.  Maybe this was where he got his head injury - from a dangerous job?  Riggers used to move very heavy loads, but the occupation was so highly-specialised that, even today, it is one of the very few that still can only be learned by apprenticeship.  if this *was* how he got his head injury, he must have suffered for several years, because he was 66 by the time he was committed to the Asylum (by his son-in-law).

Madness Monday: Of unsound mind and untidy room

In the 1891 census, great-great-grandfather John Dunstone Avery was living on his own (but not a widower), with a brood of children.  In the 1901 census, his wife great-great-grandmother Emma Elizabeth Dunstone Avery was living without him (but not a widow), with her daughter and son-in-law.  Where was she in 1891?  I eventually found her in the records of Bodmin County Asylum, where she was confined for thinking that everyone was against her.

She was described as 'fairly well educated for her station in life', and later in the patient records we read that 'her bedroom is all in disorder'.

When are they coming for me, then? LOL